Qaeda’s 9/11 Viral Video Forgets 9/11

The latest viral-video harangue from al-Qaida’s second in command is like a Sam Kinison routine. It rants about everything in the news — from Pakistani floods to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the presidential succession in Egypt — except for the one thing it was supposed to cover. That’s right: Ayman al-Zawahiri never directly mentions 9/11.

Al-Qaida’s greatest-ever triumph, the murder of 3000 Americans in 2001, barely gets a cameo in Zawahiri’s 45-minute-long diatribe. He wants Muslims to reflect on “lessons learned during these nine years,” but simply takes for granted what occasioned their nine-year-long education. Indeed, al-Sahab, al-Qaida’s media company, released the tape a full four days after the 9/11 anniversary. The delay can’t even be explained by a desire to respond to President Obama’s 9/11 commemoration — the U.S. president doesn’t get mentioned either. (Laziness or a successful hack?)

And it’s not just 9/11. Promises of future attacks used to be central to al-Qaida’s communications plan. But today, there’s just a generic promise that the “Crusade” against Islam will ultimately fail.

Instead, Zawahiri’s message is directed at Muslim communities, especially those thinking about giving up the jihad.

And there Zawahiri is all over the place. The first chunk of the tape discusses the Pakistani floods, glomming onto the widespread popular anger at the government’s insufficient response and adding an element of theodicy by suggesting that the floods are God’s punishment. But then he comes close to suggesting Pakistan as a whole deserved the floods because of its tolerance of “the spread of drinking of wine, drugs, nudity, displaying of feminine beauty, gambling, usury and perversions.” Not a nice thing to say about your hosts.

Then Zawahiri expands his critique. He wants Muslims to see that they’ve got two models for how to live their lives: the righteous struggle of the religious warrior and the craven capitulation of those who would seek negotiation and co-existence with the unbelievers. “Every Arab government” is in the second category, as is the Palestinian Authority for negotiating with Israel, Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei for presenting a still-too-secular alternative to the apostate Egyptian government, and Somali President Sharif Ahmed, who sold out the extremist Islamic Courts Union. Maybe, just maybe, Zawahiri is providing a subtle warning to the Taliban not to negotiate a peace deal with Hamid Karzai’s government.

It doesn’t get more Manichean than that. But in case anyone has a problem with al-Qaida’s methodology — all the murder, for instance — Zawahiri wants to assure them that it’s not such a bad group. “We disown any operation which a Jihadi group carries out in which it doesn’t show concern for the safety of the Muslims,” he says, “for we have only left our houses, abandoned our homelands and made our Shari’ah and the rules of His religion.” Yes, and killed exponentially more Muslims than non-Muslims. Apparently, it’s not just Westerners who have to worry about making new enemies after killing civilians.

Interestingly, the video has English subtitles, indicating that al-Qaida wants Muslims in the West to absorb its message. But it doesn’t give them any actual exhortations to join the struggle, let alone additional instructions for attacking the non-believers. Even a coked-up Sam Kinison would have been more focused.
Photo: IntelCenter